Failure may be an orphan, but McCain campaign veterans seem to be doing their best to pin blame for defeat on their MAVERICK VP choice Sarah Palin. Fox News Channel political correspondent Carl Cameron today disclosed the first of what he predicts will be an "avalanche" of unflattering stories about the Republican vice presidential nominee: Off-the-record tips from McCain aides that Palin did not know Africa was a continent or the constituent countries in the NAFTA treaty. He later told Bill O'Reilly Palin didn't know the constituent nations of North America, either. More damning, from a campaign perspective?

Far worse for the campaign was that Palin did not allow aides to prep her for her disastrous interview with Katie Couric, thus exposing her ignorance — or "lack... of knowledgeability" as Cameron diplomatically puts it — to the general public. This intractability was supposedly followed by Palin temper tantrums when things, inevitably, went poorly.

If bitter ex-McCain people are trying, as it seems, to torpedo Palin's chances of running in 2012 or 2016, it's hard to see how these leaks will accomplish that. If repeated on-camera stupidity by Palin wasn't enough to destroy those hopes, unverified and anonymously-sourced tales from the campaign trail are hardly going to do the trick.